BCI Functionality

Top Priority

1. Disambiguation of an acronym.
   1. synchronize with existing data source
2. Getting from a DwC? institution:collection couplet to a web-service or web-page (not necessarily getting the specimen information but getting something informative).
3. Standard URI string for web-service access to collections. Allow insertion of DwC? catalog number into a query to retrieve basic information.
4. Resource discovery/survey (populating the database with missing collections)
5. Prioritizing digitization resource. Comparison between what they say they hold and how much is in GBIF.
6. Nomenclature types focus.
7. Taxonomic Scope - down to as fine a granularity as possible i.e. species.

Promotion

• "Annual Report of the Biodiversity Collections Index" - State of the nation.
• Statistical reports on ongoing basis.
• Targeted reports for different purposes.

Resource Discovery

• Finding a specimen record from an inst/col/cat combination. (beyond scope)
• Biggest Fish in India
• Collections containing frozen material.
• Finding people who can check distribution records in GBIF.
• All the collections exhibited in 1893 at museum X.
• Location of all the specimens (materials) from a particular expedition
• Finding the specimens for which have associated archival materials.
• Regional portal. Give me a view of where all the material collected from this region is housed.
• Which collections contain types.
• Mobilizing collections for a common purpose (raise cash!).
• Finding publications/use of material from our collection/institution (incl. genbank)
• Finding webservices associated with a collection.
• Similar collections
• Neighboring collections
• ESCROW?
• Personal collections.
• Movement of collections.

Gap Analysis

• Gap analysis (geographic access) - where do we believe collections should be located but aren't.
• Gap analysis (geographic scope of collections) - where do we not have material from.
• Gap analysis (taxonomic scope of collections) - what groups are under represented.
• Gap analysis (preservation type X taxonomy)
• Under studied taxa.
• Prioritizing digitization resource.

Access to Materials/Data

• Access - policy to a collection.
• Access - is there a physical catalog
• Access - is there a digital catalog
• Finding fish specimens available for destructive sampling.

Resource Allocation /

• Under studied collections i.e. we know they exist but we don't know what is in them.
• All collections in need of immediate physical curation.
• All collections in need of digitization,
• Collections in peril.
• Collections in a war zone.

Implementation Issues

• What does this acronym mean?
• Improve standardization in databases - of collections/institutions.

-- RogerHyam - 28 Jan 2008